A Science&Technology (S&T) Information Day, called "Cooperation with Canada in the EU FP7" was organized at the Canadian Embassy in Budapest on March 27, 2007 with the purpose to stimulate collaborative partnerships within context of the 7th Framework Program and to determine areas ofpotential cooperation and projects in which Canada can play a role with local partners. Participants included the representatives of universities' R&D offices, research centres, institutes of the Hungarian Academy of Science (HAS), national and regional innovation agencies, S&T departments of different ministries, industry associations and innovative companies. The conference was very successful and effective with almostforty attendees. One Canadian and six Hungarianspeakers were invited to cover all aspects of potential S&T cooperation with a focus on two priority areas, ICT and biotechnology where Hungary has had some notable success stories. 

Below, full report of the event submitted by the Budapest Canadian Embassy:  

1. In light of the objectives and the anticipated outcomes of theevent, we invited Pat Ockwell, Counsellor in Science andTechnology of the Mission of Canada to the European Union inBrussels who is well positioned to lend insights as to how to bestbuild on or take part in opportunities offered though FP7. In thecourse of the Information Day, participants were informed aboutthe funding programs dedicated to international collaborationincluding the Going Global Program, as well as the Canada Founding for Innovation's S+T funding, and other programs. The attendees learnt about the tools available for collaboration with special emphasis on Canada's involvement in the EU's FP7 and the ERA-Can office located in Ottawa that provides a "one stop shop" to help Canadian and European researchers to establish links with each other. The current state of S&T in Canada, the priority S&T areas and the Canadian research network and its contribution to innovation was also covered. Enquiries from a wide range of questioners followed this presentation which showed the considerable interest of the audience with deep scientific backgrounds.

2. Tivadar Lippenyi, the Regional Vice-President of the NationalResearch and Technology Office gave a snapshot of the Hungarian situation with regards to Research & Development (R+D) and summarized the local innovation results. We learnt that in 2005, Hungary spent 0.95% of its GDP on R+D, the national innovation strategy has just been finalized and is going to be passed in Parliament in a few weeks. The priority S&T areas include ICT, life sciences and biotech, vehicle automation research, agri-food and nanotechnology and there are 19 regional knowledge centres in the country in these areas. The funding programs dedicated to enhance innovation includes the Hungarian Innovation Fund (for new projects in 2007 it is HUF 2-3 billion), the National Development Plan (HUF 35.5 billion per year) and the FP7 (EUR 7.21 billion yearly). At the end of his presentation, the VP proposed potential areas and partners for cooperation in EU FP7. It was also mentioned that there was a Hungarian Office for Research and Development in Brussels (HunOR) - to complement the ERA-Can Office, - with the mission to facilitate successful participation of Hungary in the Sixth Framework Programme.

3. Dr. Edit Halasz, Associate Professor of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BUTE) presented the IST-EC2 project which is aimed at establishing a bridge between Canadian and European partners in the Information Society Technologies (IST) in R+D projects. This project was funded by EU under FP6, as well as by key Federal Government Departments and Agencies in Canada, and the Computer Research Institute in Montreal. The partners includeDFAIT, CRC, CRIM, NRC-IRAP and NSERC in Canada, while in Hungary it is BUTE, and many other universities in Europe.

4. Erno Duda, Director of the Hungarian Biotech Association held a presentation on the success of Hungarian researchers in biotech. He presented success stories of Hungarian companies, such as the Kinase Inhibitory company, specialized in cancer research (melanoma), the licence of which was acquired in 2006 by Caprion Pharmaceuticals of Canada. Another example was Avicor, a chemical microarray company, which developed a world novelty in this area and all its R+D has been done in Hungary. Thales, a spin-off company of Comgenex received the R&D 100 Award 2005 by R&D Magazine and the Hungarian Industry Innovation Prize 2005 for developing and providing microscale flow instruments for chemical research and development. The message came through clearly that Hungary has an outstandingly high quality of research base andhuman capital with 50 core biotech firms, five biotech-relateduniversity knowledge centres and three bioincubators clustered in four academic towns of Budapest, Szeged, Debrecen and Pécs. This country has a leading position in the quality of scientific research institutions.

5. The last two lecturers from the Biological Research Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS) from Szeged approached the biotech research applications from two different aspects. Gyula Hadlaczky, Scientific Advisor of the Institute of Genetics presented the artificial chromosome research program, the cooperation with the Canadian Chromos company, and the gene therapy with artificial chromosomes including the cure of a mouse model of Krabbe disease with therapeutic artificial chromosomes.Following that, Kornel Kovacs, Senior Scientific Advisor of theInstitute of Biophysics held a presentation about biotechapplications approaching the subject from the aspects of renewable energy and environment protection including the hydrogen-fuelled zero-emission vehicles, the use of solar energy, biogas and its challenges.

6. The presentations were followed by a lunch hosted by Ambassador Robert Hage and the Trade Commissioner Service. In the course of the lunch in his speech Mr. Zavodszky, the Chairman of the session and the Director of Hungarian Innovation Foundation evaluated the present state of Hungarian innovation and compared it with the Canadian scientific and technological situation showing thatHungary has still a lot of things to do in this field.

7.The conference and professional discussions during lunch, as well as the wide range of questions following the Canadian presentation proved the enormous interest for S+T collaboration in specific fields and for opportunities to cooperate within EU FP7 from the Hungarian side. Hopefully, this will result in the ongoing development of bilateral scientific and technological relations in the future as well.